Sunday, October 7, 2001

Nearly four weeks later and it is not an uncommon sight. Blue police sawhorses, and actual concrete barricades, keeping a Manhattan street closed to vehicles and pedestrians. A sign handwritten on posterboard advising the patients of a local doctor that if they're not on "the list," they cannot enter.

But we are nowhere near the World Trade Center. We are in fact three miles away, at 66th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. 66th is blocked off. 65th is blocked off. Why? Because at the other end of this block, on West End Avenue, is a relay station for the city's power grid. A week after the attacks, the barricades went up. Officers then spoke of a specific threat against the station. They're saying nothing now.

On the East Side, at the power company's main plant, security is not nearly so tight. Three lanes of First Avenue adjoining it are coned off, but the sidewalk is open. Of course that main plant is just south of the United Nations, and the U.N. Plaza is completely closed to traffic - blocked, improbably enough, by the bright orange trucks which during the winter spread salt on snowy city streets. Their dumpsters are filled now, with sand.

How long will these stark reminders of the trauma here be in place. "Till further notice," says a cop on 66th.